When Singer and his longtime friend and business partner Eduardo Rallo started the chain in 2004, they wanted to bring Latinos a pharmacy experience that reminded them of home.

“I didn’t want a Walgreens in Spanish,” said Singer, a native of Mexico who moved to San Diego when he was 14. “In Mexico, the pharmacist interacts with you immediately. That service, that connection, here it is nonexistent.”

The first Farmacia Remedios opened in Oakland’s Fruitvale district. The other two locations are in San Francisco’s Mission district and San Jose.

Two more stores will open in San Jose by year’s end, as will one in Los Angeles. The company’s goal is to open 20 additional stores in the next five years.

The chain intends to fill for Latino consumers a gap that comes between a mass-market drugstore and the mom-and-pop version.

All of the store’s signs and labels are in Spanish. The aisles are clean and well-stocked with Mexican products such as Vanart shampoo, Vitacilina ointment, Zote soap and Pomada de la Campana. Goods such as Nivea cream, a non-Mexican brand, are sold in Mexican packaging featuring various-sized jars with tin lids.

Remedios means “remedies” in Spanish and is also a woman’s name, which along with the company’s logo of a matronly looking woman is reminiscent of a mother or grandmother’s care.

The pharmacies lease space to QuickHealth, a Burlingame-based operator of walk-in medical clinics. On-site medical care completes a circle of services Singer said Farmacia Remedios aims to offer: from ailment to diagnosis to prescription to remedy.

“Our Hispanic community is not being served the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “Our goal is to become the health provider to the Hispanic community.”

Singer and Rallo said the model addresses the needs of working-class Latinos, who tend to lack health insurance and access to affordable care.

“You cross the invisible line between serving the market and exploiting the market,” said Carlos Baradello, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Business and Management who is an expert on the Latino market. “On one side, you have profit maximization, and the other is making healthy profit and serving the market.”

Some merchants do as little as possible to make a sale, Baradello said, which often means poor service or a lack of investment in their business.

“A lot of these areas tend to be underserved, and retailers tend to take advantage of the customer,” Rallo said. “The stores have a captive audience, and they’ll shop there because it’s their only option. The merchants don’t take the time to address all the details.”

The details he refers to include good lighting, clean floors, helpful salespeople, fully stocked aisles, organized merchandise and attractive signs and labels.

The San Francisco store, with its white exterior and big sign, stands out from its neighbors. . Other businesses on the block have dark store fronts, handmade signs and merchandise in boxes outside the front door.

“We’re trying to avoid being what everybody else is,” Singer said. “There’s no secret to this business. People ask me, ‘How did you think to do all of this?’ I spent a lot of time in Walgreens, and whatever they are doing wrong, I will do it right.”

The idea for the chain started about four years ago when Singer found himself ready to shift his career.

He and Rallo met as undergraduates at UC San Diego in 1985 and always talked of starting a company together.

Both describe their friendship as one that formed quickly and solidly.

“(Ben) was, like, the third person I met when I came to the states,” said Rallo, who left Cuernavaca, Mexico, to attend UC San Diego.

He said he and Singer share the “right chemistry and same interests.”

“We’ve run marathons together. … Now, he’s a brother — he’s a member of my family.”

The two have remained close for longer than two decades, even while living in different parts of the country and pursuing separate careers.

Rallo went on to get a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University, and he has founded and developed several companies, including World Wraps and BrainStorm Ventures.

He manages the investment portfolio of Pacific Community Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund.

“Anything that I get involved in, besides being financially viable, has to also give back to the community and address a need,” he said.

Singer, who majored in political science and biology as an undergraduate, earned a master’s degree in international and economic policy from American University in Washington, D.C. He spent three years working for the International Trade Administration, a branch of the federal government that helps American companies do business in other countries.

Deciding to leave government, he took a job in the marketing department of Western Union in New York and eventually became marketing director for Latin America.

He remembers visiting retail outlets that carried Western Union money transfers and seeing stores that were dirty, disorganized and had poor customer service.

“That is where I was exposed to the lack of services for the Latino consumer,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is terrible. I’m sending my customers, with a beautiful TV ad, here? They are heroes. They come here to support their families and send money home, and they have to go to the liquor store.'”

After five years and a management shake-up, Singer decided to leave Western Union.

“Eduardo called me and said, ‘What are you going to do?'” Singer said. “I moved to San Diego, where my family is. He came down, and we started thinking.”

Four years later, the two are running Farmacia Remedios, and the move from friends to business partners is working.

“I trust (Ben),” Rallo said. “There’s nothing more to it. I respect him. I felt he’s very good at what he does, and I know what I know and what I can contribute. … We trust each other and there’s good communication and that’s it.”

The company employs more than 40 people, including store staff and five corporate managers.

Singer said the chain is profitable and its sales are meeting expectations, but he is looking forward to seeing the chain and the brand expand.

Next month, Singer will move to Los Angeles to oversee stores in Southern California, which he predicts will become Farmacia Remedios’ top market.

Until then, Singer will continue working out of his living room or nearby coffee shop — they cannot afford a corporate office yet — and stopping by the stores in jeans and sneakers to fill in when he is needed.

“We try to interact with customers as much as we can,” Singer said. “That’s very Hispanic. We’re very warm people.”

For Singer, that means giving a balloon to children who walk in the store, offering to watch a customer’s bike while she picks out lipgloss and helping a man find his favorite cream.

“I like to spend one day a week on the floor at one of the stores,” he said. “You learn under fire. Not knowing what I’m doing has been helpful. … You just go for it. You are willing to try everything. Like a kid, you just test and test.”

Like starring in a television commercial.

Blanca Torres covers retail and consumer issues. Reach her at 925-943-8263 or btorres@cctimes.com. Read her blog, Shop Talk, at cctextra.com/blogs/shoptalk.

BIOGRAPHY

NAME: Ben Singer

OCCUPATION: Co-owner and operator of Farmacia Remedios, a three-store chain of pharmacies catering to Latino consumers

RESIDENCE: San Francisco

FAMILY: Wife, Sarah Portnoy; son, Salomon, 2 weeks old

ACHIEVEMENTS: After years of working in government and marketing, Singer turned his attention to launching a company that would make a profit and address the needs of Latino consumers with attention to detail and respect.